Dharma, sutras, and commentarial interpretations of interest to American Buddhists of all traditions with news that not only informs but transforms. Emphasis on meditation, enlightenment, karma, social evolution, and nonharming.
(To contact us, leave a comment marked "private").

Happy Hanukkah, one and all! The Jewish version of Diwali (the Festival of Lights) runs for eight days beginning at sundown last night. The annual celebration is one of the reasons we say "Happy Holidays" in the U.S. as winter begins. It's insulting to say "Merry Christmas" to everyone as if all anyone celebrated were the mandated Christian holy days of the dominant culture.

Winter is gloomy; celebrations are festive. Do the math. This is the time of year most peoples have traditionally had big post-harvest feasts to fatten up and, more importantly, to cheer up. Death is near with suicide, depression, loneliness, family fights, and the cold.

Hanukkah or Chanukah(חֲנֻכָּה, khanuká, חנוכה) is a Jewish holidaycommemorating the rededication of a Holy Temple (the Second Temple) in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire. It starts on the 25th day of Kislev according to the Hebrew calendar, which may occur at any time from late November to late December on the popular Christian Gregorian calendar.

He's a white Christian.No, he's not. He's a black Jew.

How to celebrate? The festival is observed by the kindling of the lights of a unique candle holder, the nine-branched menorah, one additional light on each night of the holiday, progressing to eight on the final night.

Instead of one big red-and-white mushroom like gift under a Scandinavian pine tree, reminiscent of the magic mushroom ceremonies at the root of the way we celebrate Xmas, Hanukkah in addition to getting made fun of at school (which is called bullying and is wrong) means getting eight gifts. Wiki it.

Magic Moses Mushrooms available for study! The promised land? Moses Mushrooms, a unique hybrid, were created for the study of the religious experience. Some scientists now say the "burning bush" could have actually been a mushroom or psychedelic plant combination [DMT derived from Syrian rue and acacia] that allowed Moses to "see God" and find his way. Best Spore combines some of their top tiered mushrooms used in religious ceremonies to create a desert spirit quest. Limited time availability. These spores are for microscopy and research purposes only.

This news report conveys a picture very different from the one I present in the scientific journal Time and Mind, which is devoted to the history of culture and consciousness.

This report contains words and sentences I have neither written nor uttered, some introduced in quotation marks as if coming from me. Terms such as "drug," "trip," "high," and "stoned" are ones I have nothing to do with and which I do not condone.

Moreover, the first report suffers from some basic misunderstandings of my crucial arguments. For instance, the Amazonian brewayahuasca is made out of two plants, each alone incapable of inducing any psychoactive effect.

The remarkable finding is that in the Near East there grow two plants with the very same molecules contained by the two Amazonian plants. The report mentions only the tree (which is not a burning bush) Acacia, but it is crucial for this to be conjoined with the bushPeganum harmala [Syrian rue].

I must stress that the use of psychoactive plants I have encountered in the Amazon is always embedded in religious and/or medicinal rituals.

In traditional Amerindian societies the rituals were very strict and directed by a specialist (a shaman or healer), and demanded prior preparation.

Remarkably, a similar preparation is specified in the Book of Exodus in conjunction with the Mount Sinai theophany[manifestation of God]. The plants were universally regarded as sacred, even divine, and held to be the source of true knowledge and the very foundation of the cultures in question.

Their consumption is a lifelong engagement -- not, as [The Guardian states], mere "dabbling"). In fact, scholars nowadays call these plants and the preparations made out of them "entheogens" (that is, something capable of generating the Divine within).

Psychoactive agents are not good or bad in themselves; rather, their value depends on their usage. Note that, in both the Jewish kiddush and the Catholic mass, wine (not water or milk) serves as a sacrament.

[Wine is a cheap substitute for the original magic mushroom used for sacramental purposes, with which the early Jesus cult was wrapped according to Christian scholar John M. Allegro in The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross: A Study of the Nature and Origins of Christianity Within the Fertility Cults of the Ancient Near East.]

I agree with Rabbi Pete Tobias (Face to Faith) that the spiritual, cultural, and historical import of the biblical events, and of their associated texts and religious messages, is not diminished by their association with psychoactive plants.

The plants are just instruments which induce higher sensitivity, greater insight, spiritual sentiments, and creativity. However, what will be created depends on the person at hand.

The indigenous users of ayahuasca repeatedly stressed that what an individual will experience with the brew and what he or she will learn from it utterly depends on the intellectual and ethical standing of that individual. As I stated in the radio interview Tobias cites, it takes a Moses to bring the Torah. Source

Funny

WISDOM QUARTERLY

All materials on this site are submitted by editors and readers. All images, unless otherwise noted, were taken from the Internet and are assumed to be in the public domain.

In the event that there is still a problem, issue, or error with copyrighted material, the break of the copyright is unintentional and noncommercial, and the material will be removed immediately upon presented proof.

Contact us by submitting a comment marked "private."

Do not follow this journal if you are under vinaya or parental restrictions. Secure protection by Sucuri.

Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at creativecommons.org/about/licenses.